On the topic of random encounters, are they really that bad? I don't really like running around with things chasing me, and being able to walk around an enemy makes people lazy.

Yes. Much better.

It makes dungeon exploring a lot more bearable. Trying to explore/solve a puzzle in a big room or a quest which involves backtracking become tedious as hell, because you can't usually go a couple of steps without facing the same enemy for the 100th time. It just becomes boring and repetitive. In games like Tales Of and Xenoblade, you can kill all the enemies in the room and then be free to explore at your will, with maybe the occasional respawn.

I also like the little bonuses you can get with nonrandom encounters, like actually using skill to get stuff like Players Advantages or screwing up and getting hit by a back attack (if you get hit by a back attack in Persona 4 with the wrong Persona equipped, consider yourselves ****ed. Goddamn light/dark moves). And linking enemies on the map, a notable example being The World Ends With You where you can link up to 5 (I think it was 5 anyway... might of been 3 or 4) sets of enemies in a row, which actually sets a decent challenge as very little health gets restored and your pins don't get reset. It makes grinding a whole lot of fun as well.

It also helps when you're searching for certain enemies or items that get dropped by certain enemies. Instead of running around in a circle until that specific enemy comes up >_>.

[Edited by malyg, 1/3/2012 11:10:59 AM]

So basically, random encounters are too difficult for you?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Child of Neo7Half-sister of AdmiralThrawnMother of Planbskater, Foxxie-kun, DayDreamer85, Rise_Against and FireflyPoi

Where did you get that from? >_>If anything, I was saying non-random encounter games like Persona and TWEWY are more challenging.

The last part.

If you're looking for something specific, it's generally rare. If you can run up to it then where's the challenge? Besides, there is the option of equipment that turns of random encounters if you're an area where you don't want it.

Where Final Fantasy X was concerned, the encounters around puzzles weren't bad. Most of the puzzles were fiend-free temples.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Child of Neo7Half-sister of AdmiralThrawnMother of Planbskater, Foxxie-kun, DayDreamer85, Rise_Against and FireflyPoi

But running around waiting for it to appear isn't a challenge. Thats like saying waiting around for a bus is a challenge. You know it's gonna happen eventually, but the quicker it gets here the better.And turning off the actual battles seems too cheap >_>. I shouldn't have to turn off gameplay in order to enjoy the game =).

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